Christmas with the claridges // 2022

Well, it happened–Santa mugs, hot chocolate, stockings, and spending waaaay too much at Target.

Christmas.

This was David’s and my second Christmas together as an old married couple. We did all the ole’ Christmassy things: picking out a tree right after Thanksgiving at the ole Home Depot tree lot; unpacked and dusted our Santa mugs, filling them up with our first hot cocoas of the season while we decorated our tree all while Netflix’s “Fake Fireplace” cackled and popped on the TV LOL.

Behold! Christmas 2022.

She’s a beaut, Clarke!

Taking our pretty pine home to dress and doll her up.

Oh, and of course, the mandatory cheesy-couple-decorating-the-tree pic for the internet, ahem.

As you can see below, our tree is very health conscience LOL. Fun fact: the chicken nugget ornament on the left is a legit preserved Mcdonalds nugget I bought from Etsy last year for David LOL. David is a chicken nugget/strips/fingers/sandwich FIEND.

Behold! All dressed up and ready for the ball! Our tree:)

I know there are grander, more elegant trees on the internet with color coordinated ribbons and matching ornaments, but David and I both love replicating our childhood Christmas trees with the colored lights, and the quirky, meaningful ornaments bobbing all jolly along with the candy canes. I remember helping decorate the tree as a child, and having my select few favorite ornaments that I loved to hang up on the tree. I also loved playing with the ornaments as if they were my dolls and the tree was my dollhouse. David is just as sickeningly nostalgic as I am, and we both decided we would love to have that experience for our future children vs. an overly picture perfect tree.

Small Town USA Light Parade

We went to Safford’s Christmas light parade. Safford is a pretty dusty southern Arizona town but their light parade is pretty impressive, honestly.

The Grinch!

As you can tell, a lot of my “holiday dreams” if you will are decorative. I’m freaky obsessive decorating for the holidays and it’s really how I celebrate and how I show my love for the season.

And one of my big plans/visions for Christmas is to 1) one day have a family room 2) decorate that entire family room with Christmas classic vignettes dedicated to the Christmas classics. Every corner/table/nook/cranny that tell the story of A Chirstmas Carol! A Charlie Brown Christmas! Christmas Vacation! Home Alone! The Grinch!

Until the housing market in Arizona loses its inflation insanity, and we can buy our first home, I’m going to dedicate our entry table to one Christmas classic, you know, slowly build up my collection. Last year’s table was A Charlie Brown Christmas and this year, obviously was The Grinch!

Fun fact about me: I totally hated the Grinch That Stole Christmas. Ugh that song! With the forced opera singing that lasted five years. I was a notorious Grinch hater. Annnnd then I met David who was a Grinch lover. And then my heart grew three damn sizes and now the damn story is endearing and I even like the damn song now, too.

Thanks for that, David.

So here is my Grinch table! Of course, I plan to add to my collections every year. You know, make it beyond EXTRA. So I actually consider this my Grinch starter pack LOL.

Behold!

Christmas Card Photos

One of the things I wanted to do once we got married was send out Christmas cards. Of course I could send cards as a single woman but it felt kinda dorky. I mean, it’s kind of a married with kids kinda thing. Getting married in my mid-thirties, I feel like I’m out of the Christmas card loop.

I was still excited to fully be married by forcing Christmas coordinated outfits on my man, command poses for the camera like a matriarchal dictator and then address cards while humming and nibbling on cookies.

Last year and this year we took pictures, but I never got around to sending out cards LOL. There’s always next year!

But here are the husband-held-hostage-holiday photos nonetheless.

Christmas Make n’ Bakes

Christmas cookie baking, dammit!

I have to say, my favorite Christmas cookie hands down is Gingerbread. Mmm…I can eat gingerbread all the live long day.

I also love spice drops and tried out this new recipe–oatmeal gumdrop cookies. They’re pretty good but not the prettiest cookie. In all honestly, they scream Aunt Bethany to me, and I feel like people would consciously skip over them in fear of consuming cat hair, raisins and pennies. Definitely had the senile old lady look. But strangely tasted good but I may not make them because cookies gotta have bragging rights, dammit!

Pickled pears!

Ok I’m obviously an Anglophile. I follow British influencers religiously while I roll my eyes at American influencers LOL.

I found this charming and oh so quintessentially British woman’s instagram and learned about picked pears from her. Pickled pears is low key a British Christmas thang. So you know I was ALL about it.

So I became a Suzy homemaker and canned some damn Christmas pears. They turned out quite lovely! I would love to hand them out as Christmas gifts in the future.

Ho Ho Hot Chocolate

I really embrace my basic white broadness by fully embracing the kitchen tiered tray trend. However, I like to fill my tray with festive nibbles along with decor than just decor. For Christmas, I use my tiered tray as a hot chocolate station.

I got this amazing thermos from World Market last year which I adore. But then I put my Santa mugs on the bottom tier, hot cocoa and candy canes on the second tray and on the tippy top, I put syrups and sprinkles along with straws to make hot chocolate just that much more damn amazing!

I love collecting a new Santa mug every year. I plan to have a big collection of Santa mugs that I’ve collected over the years. I plan to have my unborn children fight over my collection when I die someday LOL.

Ode to the Little Debbie Christmas Cake

If you know me at all, I freaking love Little Debbies! My childhood and big butt was built on Little Debbies. And there is something about the Christmas tree cakes! That crunchy green sugar. Mmmmm.

This year they had ice cream!!! Bah!!!

Christmas Decor House Tour

Okay now for the damn decor!

Our Christmas photo from last year:)

Our bedroom! Yes, I want to be an EXTRA and decorate every damn room of the damn house for Christmas!

Our cozy little Gingerbread kitchen.

Home for the Holidays

David and I went to spend Christmas with my family in Wickenburg. On the way there, we made a holly jolly pit stop to Waffle House! I love how gritty Waffle House is. It builds character, one carb at a time.